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Evaluation of mental health stigma on medical education: an observational study with Portuguese medical students

BACKGROUND: The Portuguese mental health care plan emphasizes that health care professionals can be a source of stigma against people with mental illness enhancing self-stigma and leading to a decrease in the search for help and adherence to treatment. METHODS: In this exploratory study, we surveyed...

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Autores principales: Pinto, Inês C., Bernardo, Margarida, Sousa, Sara, Curral, Rosário
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7386544/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32734014
http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/j.pbj.0000000000000074
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author Pinto, Inês C.
Bernardo, Margarida
Sousa, Sara
Curral, Rosário
author_facet Pinto, Inês C.
Bernardo, Margarida
Sousa, Sara
Curral, Rosário
author_sort Pinto, Inês C.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The Portuguese mental health care plan emphasizes that health care professionals can be a source of stigma against people with mental illness enhancing self-stigma and leading to a decrease in the search for help and adherence to treatment. METHODS: In this exploratory study, we surveyed 111 first and last year students from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, Portugal, using the Portuguese version of the Attribution Questionnaire AQ-27 to assess the attitudes toward mental illness. RESULTS: The students showed a significant difference in the segregation dimension, and in some items related with pity and coercion in the end of the course. These results express a positive will to integrate people with mental illness in community, a decrease of pity and a valorization of the pharmacological treatment in this kind of disease. The previous personal experience of psychiatric problems decreases the level of segregation and psychological problems increase the motivation to help. CONCLUSION: Final-year students express more positive and less discriminatory attitudes toward people with severe mental illness than first-year students. This is likely due to education and contact opportunities promoted throughout the medical school, as well as due to the experience of having gone to a psychology or psychiatric consultation. Knowledge of stigma levels of future medical doctors is therefore crucial for the prevention of attitudes that could condition the provision of medical care.
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spelling pubmed-73865442020-07-29 Evaluation of mental health stigma on medical education: an observational study with Portuguese medical students Pinto, Inês C. Bernardo, Margarida Sousa, Sara Curral, Rosário Porto Biomed J Original Article BACKGROUND: The Portuguese mental health care plan emphasizes that health care professionals can be a source of stigma against people with mental illness enhancing self-stigma and leading to a decrease in the search for help and adherence to treatment. METHODS: In this exploratory study, we surveyed 111 first and last year students from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, Portugal, using the Portuguese version of the Attribution Questionnaire AQ-27 to assess the attitudes toward mental illness. RESULTS: The students showed a significant difference in the segregation dimension, and in some items related with pity and coercion in the end of the course. These results express a positive will to integrate people with mental illness in community, a decrease of pity and a valorization of the pharmacological treatment in this kind of disease. The previous personal experience of psychiatric problems decreases the level of segregation and psychological problems increase the motivation to help. CONCLUSION: Final-year students express more positive and less discriminatory attitudes toward people with severe mental illness than first-year students. This is likely due to education and contact opportunities promoted throughout the medical school, as well as due to the experience of having gone to a psychology or psychiatric consultation. Knowledge of stigma levels of future medical doctors is therefore crucial for the prevention of attitudes that could condition the provision of medical care. 2020-07-17 /pmc/articles/PMC7386544/ /pubmed/32734014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/j.pbj.0000000000000074 Text en Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. on behalf of PBJ-Associação Porto Biomedical/Porto Biomedical Society. All rights reserved. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License 4.0 (CCBY-NC-ND), where it is permissible to download and share the work provided it is properly cited. The work cannot be changed in any way or used commercially without permission from the journal. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
spellingShingle Original Article
Pinto, Inês C.
Bernardo, Margarida
Sousa, Sara
Curral, Rosário
Evaluation of mental health stigma on medical education: an observational study with Portuguese medical students
title Evaluation of mental health stigma on medical education: an observational study with Portuguese medical students
title_full Evaluation of mental health stigma on medical education: an observational study with Portuguese medical students
title_fullStr Evaluation of mental health stigma on medical education: an observational study with Portuguese medical students
title_full_unstemmed Evaluation of mental health stigma on medical education: an observational study with Portuguese medical students
title_short Evaluation of mental health stigma on medical education: an observational study with Portuguese medical students
title_sort evaluation of mental health stigma on medical education: an observational study with portuguese medical students
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7386544/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32734014
http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/j.pbj.0000000000000074
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